Crisis strikes OWS: How can we do more to accommodate the drummers?

posted at 7:47 pm on October 21, 2011 by Allahpundit

Via the Corner’s Charles Cooke by way of Ace, test your mental endurance with four and a half minutes of an OWS apparatchik droning his way through “negotiations” with the community board about the very important matter of drum circles. The vids that circulate on blogs of OWSers popping off about Zionist bankers or overthrowing the world’s rulers capture one side of the movement, but this clip is a big bay window onto the other side — the proto-bureaucracy that’s sprung up in the park, replete with dozens of “working groups,” that takes itself utterly seriously even when the subject is hippies needing something to chant to. Somehow, something as simple as that can’t be resolved simply; it requires a board meeting, extended “dialogue,” liaisons for each side, and on and on and on. It’s statism in its protozoan form, and it’s really (albeit dryly) funny. The guy in the clip is, to the community board, what a school’s student-body president is to the local superintendent, yet he sounds like he’s arguing before the Hague. I feel almost relieved watching it, just because it’s hard to believe a movement this lame could ever be truly threatening. If they ever did feel inclined to start smashing windows, they’d need to hold 800 “working group” meetings and consult with the board first before resolving to take action. And even then, this guy might take the floor and bore them all into walking away and forgetting about it.

And yet, the media couldn’t be any more excited than it is by the whole thing. Go figure.

Ed already linked New York magazine’s comedy gold about the Great Drumming Standoff this morning so I won’t quote it again (for what it’s worth, my favorite character is “Zonkers”), but here’s Gothamist picking up the story:

Last night’s General Assembly meeting in Zuccotti Park was “one of most contentious ever,” in large part due to a heated debate over whether the drummers at Occupy Wall Street should be given $8,000 from the movement’s coffers to buy more drums and equipment. It seems some of the drums were stolen or vandalized, and the drummers asked the General Assembly to help them regroup. “We have worked for you! Appreciate us,” one drummer told the crowd, but the appeal was denied, and the Huff Post’s Craig Kanalley tweeted, “Drummer who didn’t get money from GA tonight now yelling, cursing at members of GA.” Meanwhile, another member of the drum corps was lashing out at the Community Board meeting.

“I am an occupier, I am a drummer, and, despite what they say, I am also a human being,” Ashley Love, a young member of the OWS People of Color Working Group, told the packed Community Board meeting last night. Mother Jones reports that Love was met with booing when she informed the locals, “It’s primarily a commercial area; not too many people live there. The majority of the drummers are people of color with low-income or no-income backgrounds, and Wall Street was built by slaves when they brought the Africans over here. The council people back then prohibited drumming because it was a way of protesting. It was a way of communication. And I just think you guys are scapegoating us.”

Alas, some occupiers are more equal than others. The good news is, one-percenter Russell Simmons eventually showed up and started handing out free money so presumably the drum corps will be well supplied again this weekend. Will Mike Bloomberg do anything about the noise? He hinted today that a crackdown is coming, but since the crackdown’s being couched in language like “We’ll eventually have to work something out here,” expect plenty more Hague-like opening statements at community board meetings to come.

Incidentally, and contrary to Time magazine’s claim that more than 50 percent of the public supports OWS, a new AP poll finds that just 37 percent back the movement. And of that number, only 22 percent are independents. Keep riding the tiger, Democrats. The … droning, long-winded tiger.

Blowback

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In 1989, clean-cut FBI man John Buckner is detailed to escort heavily-bearded Huey Walker back to jail for offences dating back to his days as a celebrated hippy radical. After Walker dupes Buckner on the train and himself falls into the hands of a couple of well-meaning refugees from the 60′s, the two men with apparently nothing in common find themselves on the run together. But appearances can be deceptive.

The point is, these people really think they’re relevant and their little “government meetings” to decide how to proceed is pure comedy. Drumbeating equipment committee meetings? Far out, man!

Incidentally, and contrary to Time magazine’s claim that more than 50 percent of the public supports OWS, a new AP poll finds that just 37 percent back the movement. And of that number, only 22 percent are independents. Keep riding the tiger, Democrats. The … droning, long-winded tiger.

Don’t these eco-terrorist drummers know that their drumsticks are made of banned East Slobbovian fartwood? The EPA is sending their stormtroops to the “occupation” now to beat the drummers to death with their own drumsticks.

Ashley Love: “It’s primarily a commercial area; not too many people live there. The majority of the drummers are people of color with low-income or no-income backgrounds, and Wall Street was built by slaves when they brought the Africans over here. The council people back then prohibited drumming because it was a way of protesting. It was a way of communication. And I just think you guys are scapegoating us.”

I’ve been around a few of these people in the past, and the odd thing about “professional activists” is they take their silly stabs at bureaucracy darn seriously. And given that they prefer basically “headless” organizations, you end up with demonstrations designed-by-committee.

Shockingly, this means the wackiest groups end up dominating the various “committees”, because they have the most time to spend on such things, as the wacky quotient corresponds inversely with gainful employment and a life.

This also means there’s no focus, as focus requires someone saying that Group A’s cause will be featured at this demo and Group B, C, D, E, … ZZZZZ’s causes will have to wait until next time.

ugh- every mass tantrum i mean meeting of these sorts of post modern hippies since the 90s includes 2 things that are just wrong: white people with dreadlocks and white people with hand drums …. and it’s never pretty and it never sounds good.

it was just better when they preferred light shows,acid ,and somewhat melodic psychedelic rock bands.it certainly sounded and looked better.

oppress them i say-liberate their drums and labor for the people. let the cannibalism begin. leave them there long enough and they’ll just kill each other off then one of them will abscond with all the money fools have donated to them- because that’s how collectivism always works itself out in real life.

Oh hell yes, “dialogue” – first popularized by the Seneca chief Consensus, The Brave Who Always Gets His Way (known among the early settlers as Old Ironbutt.) Also beautifully characterized by Larry McMurtry as “the general incessancy of women.”

If I play stupid long enough (shouldn’t be too hard,) everybody with something else to do will eventually give up.